Publications of Joseph Watts

Jackson, J. C.; Wilbanks, D.; Bastian, B.; Watts, J.; DiMaggio, N.; Gray, K.: Supernatural explanations across 114 societies are more common for natural than social phenomena. Nature Human Behaviour 2023, s41562-023-01558-0 (2023)

Jackson, J. C.; Watts, J.; List, J.-M.; Puryear, C.; Drabble, R.; Lindquist, K.: From text to thought: how analyzing language can advance Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science 17 (3), 17456916211004899, pp. 805 - 826 (2022)

Watts, J.; Hamerslag, E. M.; Sprules, C.; Shaver, J. H.; Dunbar, R. I. M.: Food storage facilitates professional religious specialization in hunter–gatherer societies. Evolutionary Human Sciences 4, e17 (2022)

Leisterer-Peoples, S. M.; Hardecker, S.; Watts, J.; Greenhill, S. J.; Ross, C. T.; Haun, D. B. M.: The Austronesian Game Taxonomy: A cross-cultural dataset of historical games. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 8 (1), 113 (2021)

Shaver, J. H.; Power, E. A.; Purzycki, B. G.; Watts, J.; Sear, R.; Shenk, M. K.; Sosis, R.; Bulbulia, J. A.: Church attendance and alloparenting: an analysis of fertility, social support and child development among English mothers. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences 375 (1805), 20190428 (2020)

Watts, J.; Passmore, S.; Jackson, J. C.; Rzymski, C.; Dunbar, R. I.M.: Text analysis shows conceptual overlap as well as domain-specific differences in Christian and secular worldviews. Cognition 201, 104290, pp. 1 - 5 (2020)

Jackson, J. C.; Watts, J.; Henry, T. R.; List, J.-M.; Forkel, R.; Mucha, P. J.; Greenhill, S. J.; Gray, R. D.; Lindquist, K. A.: Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure. Science 366, pp. 1517 - 1522 (2019)

Watts, J.; Sheehan, O.; Bulbulia, J.; Gray, R. D.; Atkinson, Q. D.: Christianity spread faster in small, politically structured societies. Nature Human Behaviour 2, pp. 559 - 564 (2018)

Sheehan, O.; Watts, J.; Gray, R. D.; Atkinson, Q. D.: Coevolution of landesque capital intensive agriculture and sociopolitical hierarchy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115 (14), pp. 3628 - 3633 (2018)

Gray, R. D.; Watts, J.: Cultural macroevolution matters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114 (30), pp. 7846 - 7852 (2017)

Bulbina, J.; Fraser, G.; Watts, J.; Shaver, J. H.; Gray, R. D.: Can honest signaling theory clarify religion’s role in the evolution of social inequality? Religion, Brain and Behavior 7 (4), pp. 285 - 288 (2017)

Watts, J.; Sheehan, O.; Atkinson, Q. D.; Bulbulia, J.; Gray, R. D.: Ritual human sacrifice promoted and sustained the evolution of stratified societies. Nature 532 (7598), 17159, pp. 228 - 231 (2016)

Watts, J.; Bulbulia, J.; Gray, R. D.; Atkinson, Q. D.: Clarity and causality needed in claims about Big Gods. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 39 (January), e27 (2016)

Watts, J.; Sheehan, O.; Greenhill, S. J.; Gomes-Ng, S.; Atkinson, Q. D.; Bulbulia, J.; Gray, R. D.: Pulotu: Database of Austronesian supernatural beliefs and practices. PLoS One 10 (9), e0136783 (2015)

Watts, J.; Greenhill, S. J.; Atkinson, Q. D.; Currie, T. E.; Bulbulia, J.; Gray, R. D.: Broad supernatural punishment but not moralizing high gods precede the evolution of political complexity in Austronesia. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 282 (1804), 20142556 (2015)

Watts, J.; Sheehan, O.; Atkinson, Q. D.; Bulbulia, J.; Gray, R. D.: Did ritualized human sacrifice help build and sustain social inequality? In: The cognitive science of religion: A methodological introduction to key empirical studies, pp. 239 - 248 (Eds. Slone, J.; McCorkle Jr., W.). Bloomsbury, London (2019)

Charles, S.; van Mulukom, V.; Farias, M.; Brown, J. E.; Delmonte, R.; de Maraldi, E. O.; Turner, L.; Watts, F.; Watts, J.; Dunbar, R.: Religious rituals increase social bonding and pain threshold. PsyArXiv Preprints, my4hs (2020)

Passmore, S.; Watts, J.: WEIRD people and The Western Church: who made who?, Religion, Brain & Behavior, (2022)